Method and system for checking the attainability status of a mobile terminal device

ABSTRACT

Method for executing a communication attempt with a mobile terminal device in accordance with an attainability status of a mobile terminal device in a cellular communication network having a Short Message Service Center by: querying the SMSC in the cellular network for obtaining the attainability status of said mobile terminal device and delivering said communication attempt to said mobile terminal device in accordance with said attainability status. This invention allows an application to find out if a mobile terminal device e.g. a handset is reacheable without actually contacting the handset. A short message service center does this by initiating a mobile terminated delivery attempt but not finishing it but telling the application instead if the home location register of a cellular network thinks the handset is reacheable or not.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION

This application is the U.S. National Stage of International ApplicationNumber PCT/IB02/01044 filed Apr. 3, 2002 and published in the Englishlanguage on Oct. 9, 2003 under International Publication Number WO03/084260 A1 with International Search Report.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

1. Technical Field

The present invention relates to cellular communication networks havingthe option to send short messages. It also relates to a method todeliver communication attempts in accordance with the determinedattainability of a mobile terminal device. The present invention relatesto a method to deliver communication attempts to mobile terminal deviceswith a minimized use of wireless connections. The invention furtherrelates to a mechanism inside a Short Message Service Center (SMSC) toprovide notifications for calling applications or network devices forinforming them if mobile devices are reachable or not, and if they arereachable via General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) or Global System forMobile communication (GSM).

2. Discussion of Related Art

Currently, in order to find out if a mobile terminal device isattainable, an application can send a Short Message (SM) to a handsetand based on the result of the delivery of this SM the application knowsif the handset is reachable or not. This implies also that the SM isactually delivered if the phone is reachable. Examples of this arepush-type services which would benefit by not pushing to manysubscribers when these are not reachable. E.g. a football scoreapplication would at the start of the match ‘poll’ all one hundredthousand fans and reduce the list down to just twelve thousandsubscribers currently reachable. During the match, the amount of datapushed will be reduced dramatically and the resources used (withoutcharging for it) is minimized.

Sometimes it would be desirable to know the reachability status withoutdisturbing the terminal device. Presently, the SMs are sent anyway.There are some ways in the European Telecommunication Standard Institute(ETSI) specifications to send an SMS which the phone ‘may discard’ butit is not clear if all phones will comply with this procedure or not. Inthis case the air-interface capacity is used if the phone is reachable.In practice most applications just send all the stuff to all handsetsand the SMSC capacity is wasted, and many more paging attempts areaccordingly made as a result.

The standard procedures for delivering SMs can be found in the ETSIspecifications for GSM and in the 3rd Generation Partnership Project(3GPP) specifications for the Short Message Service (SMS).

The main drawback of this standard procedure is that the mobile user hasto get rid of these SMs pushed to him just to find out the status of theterminal device.

DISCLOSURE OF INVENTION

So it is desirable to have a method and a device capable of determiningthe attainability of a mobile terminal device without disturbing it.

So it is desirable to have a method and a device capable of determiningthe attainability of a mobile terminal device without using airinterfaces.

According to one embodiment of the invention a method, for executing acommunication attempt with a mobile terminal device in accordance withthe attainability status of said mobile terminal device in a cellularcommunication network is provided. The cellular network has a ShortMessage Service Center (SMSC), to manage and administer short messages(SM). The method is executed by querying said SMSC in said cellularnetwork for obtaining an attainability status of said mobile terminaldevice and delivering said communication attempt to said mobile terminaldevice in accordance with said attainability status.

By querying the SMSC the information related to the attainability statuscan be obtained, and subsequently a communication attempt can bedelivered, if the attainability status meets the attainability demandsof said communication attempt. The communication attempt can be one ormore of the following: a SM, a plurality of SMs or multimedia messages(MMs) of a multimedia messaging service (MMS) to be delivered, a fax, anemail, a phone call to be executed. The delivery of the communicationattempt can be a forwarding of one or more SMs, MMs, emails faxes orphone calls. The delivery of said communication attempt may be notifiedby a message returned to the originator of the query. If theattainability is denied, the communication attempt is not delivered orat least postponed. If the attainability is confirmed the communicationattempt is delivered or delivery is at least tried.

Preferably, said query of said SMSC further comprises a query of a HomeLocation Register (HLR) of the cellular communication network for anattainability status of said mobile terminal device. By querying the HLRentries of the mobile terminal device, it can be found out in which cellthe mobile terminal actually is located, or in which cell it has beendetected to be the last time. The query can be started by the SMSC, anapplication running of said SMSC or by a device or application connectedto the SMSC.

Conveniently, said attainability status is obtained by evaluatingconnection related data stored in said SMSC and/or said HLR. Byevaluating the data, it can be determined if the communication attemptto be executed is deliverable or if it would be better to delay orcancel the delivery of said communication attempt. As the data stored inthe SMSC and the HLR may be not useable for easily determining theattainability, it can be used to evaluate the connection related data.The result of said evaluation can be an “attainable” state, an“unattainable” state or a “conditionally attainable” state.

This is useful, if an application or a device wants to send a lot of SMsto a mobile terminal device e.g. multi-track midi-ringing tones, games,software downloads, phone-book (all two hundred entries) etc. it isuseful to first find out if this would work or not.

A second example is a mass-delivery server which is adapted to deliversome messages (football scores, advertisements, and the like) to manysubscribers (one hundred thousand and more) and to optimize this, andwants to query who is ‘online’ to reduce the total volume. Preferably,if the state of a mobile station is determined as “not attainable” atthe beginning of a (football) game, the whole following transmissions ofactual scores of the game may be cancelled.

Advantageously, said connection related data are related to messagespending for delivery to said mobile terminal device. In the simplestcase the network device e.g. queries an SMSC to find out if there arealready SMs for a terminal device pending for delivery, and cancels orqueues the delivery if there are SMs pending for delivery. If the devicealready rejected to receive a SM, an additional SM delivery would surlyfail, and therefore may be economized. It may happen that the deliveryof the SMS pending is delayed, because of a delay in the updating of theHome Location Register, or a delay in the updating of the SMSC, so thefact that there is one SM pending may not reflect the actualattainability state of the mobile terminal device. In case of e.g. tenor more short messages pending, it can be sure that the mobile telephoneis actually not attainable.

If only the SMSC is queried for pending SMs the result of said query canbe “no SMs pending”, but actually the mobile station is not attainablebecause it is actually turned off, and no new SMs have been sent in themeantime. So the basic information “no SMs pending” is only a minimumrequirement, but may not be sufficient information for determining theattainability.

Preferably, said data are related to the connection state of said mobileterminal device. So it can be determined, if the mobile terminal devicecan be connected via communication modes such as GSM, GPRS, UMTS and thelike. This way some bulk transfers can be suppressed if they can not bedelivered through GPRS. In this case an application or a device wants toknow if the phone is online—or maybe connected for GPRS or not, and usethat information for a communication attempt such as sending a message,voicecalls, sending a fax, e-mails, Wireless ApplicationProtocol-(WAP)-decks or something like that.

Conveniently, said data are location related. It can be useful for anapplication or a device to find out if the mobile station (MS) isroaming abroad or not, and then make decisions based on that: not sendthe football scores, not download the software, etc. if the mobileterminal is actually abroad etc.

Preferably, said evaluation comprises the evaluation of data related tothe communication to be attempted. So the kind of communication attemptand the amount of data to be delivered can be taken into account todecide if the mobile terminal is actually attainable or not. So a singleSM may be delivered, even if there are messages already pending, whilean MM may be cancelled, if the same number of MMs are pending.

Advantageously, said query is executed by initiating a mobile terminateddelivery attempt to said SMSC. This embodiment of the invention allowsan application to find out if a mobile terminal is attainable withoutactually contacting the mobile terminal. The SMSC does this byinitiating the MT delivery attempt but not finishing it. Rather, ittells the application instead if the HLR thinks the handset is reachableor not. The method can be embodied by submitting an AO (“command cannotbe actioned” or “reserved for future use”) message to the SMSC with aspecial flag to activate the “query-HLR-status-only”′. The SMSC checksits own information if the MS is reachable; if other messages arepending already and currently no delivery attempt is made, the SMSC cansend the ‘not-reacheable’ info back using the last known mobileterminated (MT)-delivery attempt reason (e.g. “absent subscriber”′).Otherwise the SMSC asks the HLR for the routing information. The HLRreply actually tells where the mobile is, but also if the mobile isreachable or not. It can also tell if the mobile can be reached via theGPRS network or through the GSM network. The SMSC in this case would notdo the usual: it does not actually deliver the MT message to the mobileterminal (if reachable), but generates the notification back to theapplication or network device and deletes the message.

According to another aspect of the present invention, a software toolfor executing a communication attempt with a mobile terminal device inaccordance with the attainability status of said mobile terminal devicein a cellular communication network is provided, which comprises programcode means for performing all of the steps of the preceding descriptionwhen said program is run on a computer or a network device.

According to another aspect of the present invention, a computer programfor executing a communication attempt with a mobile terminal device inaccordance with the attainability status of said mobile terminal devicein a cellular communication network is provided, which comprises programcode means for performing all of the steps of the preceding descriptionwhen said program is run on a computer or a network device.

According to yet another aspect of the invention, a computer programproduct is provided, comprising program code means stored on a computerreadable medium for carrying out the method for executing acommunication attempt with a mobile terminal device in accordance withthe attainability status of said mobile terminal device in a cellularcommunication network is provided of the preceding description when saidprogram product is run on a computer or a network device.

Preferably, the computer program and the computer program product aredistributed in different parts and devices of the network. The computerprogram and the computer product device run in different devices of thenetwork. Therefore, the computer program and the device executing saidcomputer program have to be different in abilities and source code.

According to another embodiment of the invention a Short Message ServiceCenter (SMSC) is provided, that is capable of executing the steps of themethod of the preceding description. The SMSC is connected to a cellularcommunication network that comprises a Home Location Register (HLR). TheSMSC comprises components for receiving messages, forwarding messages,and querying HLR data of a mobile terminal device. The SMSC furthercomprises components for obtaining data related to the attainabilitystatus of a mobile terminal device, and delivering messages according tosaid obtained data related to the attainability status of said terminaldevice.

Preferably, the SMSC further comprises a component for evaluating saiddata related to the attainability status of a mobile terminal device, toobtain a attainability status. The SMSC can use the result of theevaluation to deliver the communication attempt or not. The SMSC candecide by itself, if a communication attempt is to be delivered or not.

Conveniently, the SMSC further comprises a component for generating amessage according to results from the said evaluating component. TheSMSC may transfer the result of the evaluation to a network device, inwhich case the delivery attempt would be the delivery attempt of theresult. The message can be used to inform an originator of thecommunication attempt of the delivery, e.g. by sending a messagecontaining the result, and the start, cancel or delay said deliveryattempt.

According to another embodiment of the present invention, a networkdevice is provided. The network device is connected to an SMSC of acellular communication network. The network device comprises componentsfor sending and receiving messages, generating a message for querying aSMSC for data related to a mobile terminal device and transferring saiddata to said network device, obtaining an attainability status from saidtranferred data, delivering communication attempts according to saidattainability status, and cancelling communication attempts. The networkdevice can be directly connected to the SMSC, via the cellularcommunication network, or via a gateway. The network device can be canbe a network broadcast service or the like and can be incorporated inthe SMSC, or can be an external device connected to the SMSC.

Preferably, said network further comprises a Home Location Register(HLR), and said network device further comprises a component forgenerating a message for inducing said SMSC to query HLR data of saidmobile terminal device and transferring said data to said networkdevice. So the network device may indirectly query HLR data via theSMSC. The device may be capable of directly connecting the HLR register,but this may be inadvisable for reasons like data protection, protectionof privacy and the like.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

In the following, the invention will be described in detail by referringto the enclosed drawings in which:

FIG. 1A is a flowchart of the conventional delivery of an SM in acellular communication network,

FIG. 1B is a flowchart of an attainability determination methodaccording to one embodiment of the present invention, and

FIG. 2A and FIG. 2B are block diagrams a cellular network architecturewith an indication of the steps necessary to determine the attainabilityof a mobile terminal device according to the sate of the art (FIG. 2A)and according to an embodiment of the present invention (FIG. 2B).

BEST MODE FOR CARRYING OUT THE INVENTION

FIG. 1A is a flowchart of the conventional delivery of an SM in acellular communication network. In the first step a service center (SC)40 transfers a message 60 to a short message service center (SMSC) 42.The SMSC 42 receives the SM and inspects the parameters. The SMSC 42 maybe identical to, or be incorporated in a mobile service center (MSC).The SMSC 42 queries 62 the home location register (HLR) 44, andtransfers 64 the SM to the MSC 46 using the routing information obtainedfrom the HLR 44, if no errors occur. When receiving a SM from the SMSC42, the MSC 46 retrieves 66 from the visitor location register (VLR) 48location area address information and, when appropriate, errorinformation. If no errors are indicated by the VLR 48, the SM istransferred 68 from the MSC 46 to the mobile station (MS) 50. Then theMS 50 transfers 68 a confirmation that the SM is received by the MS 50to the MSC 46. The MSC 46 then relays the delivery confirmation to theSMSC 42 in a delivery report 70. When receiving the report 70 associatedwith said SM from the MSC 46, the SMSC 42 notifies the HLR 44 of thesuccessful delivery via the MSC 46, and creates and sends the successfulreport 74 to the SC 40. These steps are executed if no errors occurduring the delivery of the SM. If e.g. the MS 50 rejects the SM sincee.g. it has no memory capacity available to store the message, or forany other reason, all these steps are futile and network and air timeresources are wasted.

FIG. 1B is a flowchart of an attainability determination methodaccording to one embodiment of the present invention, providing a methodto prevent the waste of network resources. In the first step the SC 40submits an AO message 80 (“command cannot be actioned” or “reserved forfuture use”) to the SMSC 42 with a special flag to activate the‘query-HLR-status-only’. The SMSC 42 checks its own information if theMS 50 is attainable, if other messages are pending already, and ifpending currently no delivery attempt is made. The SMSC 42 can send 84the ‘not-attainable’ back to the SC 40 using the last known mobileterminated delivery attempt reason (for example ‘absent subscriber’).Otherwise the SMSC 42 asks 82 the HLR 44 for the routing information.The HLR 44 reply 82 actually tells where the mobile is, but also if themobile is reacheable or not. It can also tell if the mobile can bereached via the GPRS network or through the GSM network.

The SMSC 42 in this case would not do the usual, in that it does notactually deliver the mobile terminated (MT) message to the MS 50 (ifreacheable), but generates the notification 84 back to the SC 40 anddeletes the message. Preferably, the SC 40 can start to send 60 an SM orMulti-SMs for delivery, as described in FIG. 1A. Preferably, the SMSC 42can deliver 62 the SM by itself, e.g. after confirmation from the SC 40.

FIGS. 2A and 2B are block diagrams a cellular network architecture withan indication of the steps necessary to determine the attainability of amobile terminal device according to the state of the art and accordingto an embodiment of the present invention. In FIG. 2A a section of aconventional cellular network is depicted with a mobile station (MS) 50,two base stations 10, 12 and a base station controller (BSC) 14 a mobileswitching center (MSC) 46. The MSC 46 is connected to home locationregister (HLR) 44, a visited location register (VLR) 48 and other databases like equipment identity register and an authentication center,concurrently designated with the reference numeral 22. The MSC 46 isconnected to a short message service center (SMSC) 42. The SMSC 42 canbe a SMS-GMSC, a SM-service gateway MSC, connecting an service center(SC) 40 e.g. in the internet with the SMSC 42. The SC 40 can be locatedin the cellular network or in adjacent network. Preferably, the MSC theSMSC and the SC can be implemented in a single network device. Theconnections required to deliver a standard SMS are indicated by bolddouble arrows.

FIG. 2B depicts the same cellular network section as FIG. 2A, with thedifference that only the connections required to determine theattainability of the MS 50 are indicated by bold double arrows.

The invention provides the following advantages for the serviceprovider:

-   -   the attainability notification is sent to the application        without using any air-interface resources and without leaving        any trace in the handset;    -   applications can find out if a phone can be contacted via GPRS        now. This might stimulate application originated GPRS based        services; and    -   no changes are required to GSM/GPRS network elements or mobile        terminals; only the SMSC is affected.

One benefit is that the user does not have to get rid of these SMspushed just to find out the status of the mobile terminal.

It is to be noted that this feature may not be intended to first queryusing the mechanism described here, and then send only one message tothe phone, because the expense of executing the method for a singleshort message may not be worthwhile.

It is to be noted that the method can be used to simply track a mobileterminal device, to track its motion, without disturbing the mobileterminal simply by repeatedly executing the method according to theinvention. In this case the communication attempt is cancelled anyway,and a notification to a network device is generated and sent, (e.g.periodically) notifying the actual position and attainability of saidmobile terminal device.

It is to be noted that the method may be used to avoid bottlenecks inthe delivery of messages, as it can simply be detected how many terminaldevices are located in a single cell, and if the delivery of broadcastmessages would lead to a data overflow in a single cell.

It is to be noted that the communication attempt can be a two waycommunication like a voicecall, or an acknowledged SM, or the like, orcan be a one way communication such as a paging call or broadcast SMs.

It is further to be noted that the SMSC can be a SMS-GMSC, a ShortMessage System—Gateway Mobile service Switching Center, providing agateway option to other data networks, like e.g. the internet, or alocal area network of a news or data provider.

This application contains the description of implementations andembodiments of the present invention with the help of examples. It willbe appreciated by a person skilled in the art that the present inventionis not restricted to details of the embodiments presented above, andthat the invention can also be implemented in another form withoutdeviating from the characteristics of the invention. The embodimentspresented above should be considered illustrative, but not restricting.Thus the possibilities of implementing and using the invention are onlyrestricted by the enclosed claims. Consequently various options ofimplementing the invention as determined by the claims, includingequivalent implementations, also belong to the scope of the invention.

1. Method comprising: a service center providing a querying to a shortmessage service center in a cellular network for obtaining attainabilitystatus of a mobile terminal device in order to determine whether todeliver a communication to said mobile terminal device, said shortmessage service center responding to the query by evaluating connectionrelated data stored in said short message service center, wherein saidconnection related data is related to messages pending for delivery tosaid mobile terminal device, and if said mobile terminal device isattainable delivering said communication to said short message servicecenter for delivering to said mobile terminal device, wherein inresponse to said query to said short message service center, the shortmessage service center queries a home location register of the cellularcommunication network for an attainability status of said mobileterminal device and wherein said attainability status is obtained byevaluating connection related data stored in said home locationregister.
 2. Method according to claim 1, wherein said connectionrelated data are indicative of a connection state of said mobileterminal device.
 3. Method according to claim 1, wherein said connectionrelated data are indicative of a location of the mobile terminal device.4. Method according to claim 1, wherein said evaluating the connectionrelated data comprises evaluating data related to the communication. 5.Method according to claim 1, wherein said query to said short messageservice center comprises a short message to said short message servicecenter, said short message being destined for said mobile terminaldevice.
 6. Software tool for determining attainability of a mobileterminal device in a cellular communication network having a shortmessage service center for subsequently executing a communication withthe mobile terminal device in accordance with the attainability statusof said mobile terminal device, comprising program code means forcarrying out the method of claim 1, wherein said software tool isimplemented in a program run on the short message service center, aservice center or a network device.
 7. Computer readable medium programfor determining attainability status of a mobile terminal device in acellular communication network having a short message service center forsubsequently executing a communication with the mobile terminal devicein accordance with the attainability status of said mobile terminaldevice, comprising program code means for carrying out the method ofclaim 1, wherein said program is configured to run on the short messageservice center, a service center or a network device.
 8. Computerreadable medium program product comprising program code means stored ona computer readable medium for carrying out the method of claim 1,wherein said program product is configured to run on the short messageservice center, a service center or a network device.
 9. A short messageservice center, connectable to a cellular communication networkcomprising a service center and a home location register, comprising: acomponent for responding to a query from the service center forobtaining attainability status of a mobile terminal device, a componentfor querying the home location register to obtain connection relateddata of the mobile terminal device and evaluating said connectionrelated data to obtain an attainability status of the mobile terminaldevice, said connection related data being related to messages pendingfor delivery to said mobile terminal device, and a component forreceiving a communication from the service center and delivering saidcommunications to the mobile terminal device if the mobile terminaldevice is attainable for receiving said communication and a componentfor generating a message to the service center according to results fromevaluating the connection related data.
 10. Network device connectableto a short message service center of a cellular communication network,comprising: a component for generating a message for querying the shortmessage service center for data related to messages pending for deliveryto a mobile terminal device, a component for receiving an attainabilitystatus of said mobile terminal device from said short message servicecenter, and a component for delivering a communication to the shortmessage service center for delivery to said mobile terminal device ifsaid mobile terminal device is attainable for receiving saidcommunication, wherein said cellular network further comprises a homelocation register, and wherein said network device further comprises acomponent for generating a message for inducing said short messageservice center to query home location register data of said mobileterminal device and for transferring said data to said network device.11. A short message service center, connectable to a cellularcommunication network comprising a service center and a home locationregister, comprising: means for responding to a query from the servicecenter for obtaining attainability status of a mobile terminal device,means for querying the home location register to obtain connectionrelated data of the mobile terminal device and evaluating saidconnection related data to obtain an attainability status of the mobileterminal device, said connection related data being related to messagespending for delivery to said mobile terminal device, means for receivinga communication from the service center and delivering saidcommunications to the mobile terminal device if the mobile terminaldevice is attainable for receiving said communication, and means forgenerating a message to the service center according to results fromevaluating the connection related data.
 12. Network device connectableto a short message service center of a cellular communication network,comprising: means for generating a message for querying the shortmessage service center for data related to messages pending for deliveryto a mobile terminal device, means for receiving an attainability statusof said mobile terminal device from said short message service center,and means for delivering a communication to the short message servicecenter for delivery to the mobile terminal device if the mobile terminaldevice is attainable for receiving said communication, wherein saidcellular network further comprises a home location register, and whereinsaid network device further comprises means for generating a message forinducing said short message service center to query home locationregister data of said mobile terminal device and for transferring saiddata to said network device.